


Mottephobia

by TinkerSpark



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Everything was fine after that, Gen, It's my fic and I say so, Moths, Phobias, Probably need to mark that too just in case, Steve he said a bad language word, Swearing, Teasing, Technically post-Endgame but not really, Thor aimed for the head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 19:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20179819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinkerSpark/pseuds/TinkerSpark
Summary: Bucky and Steve think those big green moths are fun to play with.  Tony is not a fan.  Hilarity more or less ensues.





	Mottephobia

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Welcome To StarGirl's Brain in the Stuckony discord I frequent for constantly encouraging me to get up to this nonsense, and also thanks to Sherman, the white moth who's been living in my bedroom for four days now like a creepy bastard, for the initial inspiration. Also my moth-fearing sister for providing nearly all the actual hysterical screams.
> 
> Also I pooped this out in like 20 minutes at work because of possession, IDK. No quality to be had here.

“Hey, Steve, check it out.”

Steve tilted his head backwards from where he was sprawled out on the sofa of the Avengers compound, nose deep in a book. He could see Bucky was standing behind him, the view upside-down though it was, and he was holding his vibranium arm out to the side, with...something large and green fluttering at the shoulder of it.

“The hell did you do?” Steve asked, shifting himself to sit up and get a better look.

“I made a better winged friend than you did,” Bucky answered, sounding rather amused and pleased with himself as he turned a bit more to show the rather large green moth that was perched at the curve of the metal arm’s shoulder, seeming content to just stay there. “Went outside for a run and found this little guy clinging to the side of the door. It’s getting too cold outside for moths so I thought I’d bring him in.”

“I’m pretty sure that ‘indoors’ isn’t a better place for him to be, Buck,” Steve chuckled, though he set his book aside and came over to lean down and get a closer look at the little creature. “You’re right, though, it is awfully late in the year for luna moths to still be out this far north.”

“I can’t take him back now. We’ve bonded. His name is Booger and I love him forever.”

Steve just rolled his eyes, but still grinned at the cheeky smirk Bucky presented him. “Sorry, love, but you’re just not ready for a pet,” he said, in as perfect a mimicry of the oft-repeated sentence from Bucky’s mother as he could recall from a childhood decades in the past. “They’re a lot of responsibility. Plus you already have me.”

“Hmm, true, you’re basically like trying to keep an overexcited labrador on a leash as it is,” Bucky shot back, sticking out his tongue slightly, keeping perfectly still as Steve reached out, gentler than anyone could have expected him to be, to try and coax the bug to crawl onto his own finger without damaging any part of the fragile wings or body.

“C’mere, Booger, lemme look at you,” Steve muttered, before the moth finally, possibly a little reluctantly, if a moth could be such a thing, clung to his fingertip, and he lifted it away from Bucky’s arm, bringing it up to his face to take a closer look. “Aww, they’re always so fuzzy. Like a kitten with too many legs.”

“And the wingspan of a B-17,” Bucky answered, putting his hands on his knees as he bent slightly to get a look at the underside of the moth. “He’s a monster, he’s gotta be nearly as big as your hand.”

“Supersoldier moth. The deadliest hidden experiment of Hydra,” Steve said, in near perfect seriousness. Bucky gave him a bit of a look, but just rolled his eyes when Steve finally cracked and snickered, and looked back at the insect in clear fascination.

“What am I hearing about Hydra?” another voice broke in, and the two men glanced over to see Tony, glasses on, a bundle of paperwork in his hand that he seemed very interested in, as he hadn’t even looked at what the two of them were up to yet.

“We’ve discovered their newest superweapon,” Bucky said, nodding confidently. “His name is Booger, and we’ve successfully rehabilitated him.”

“What the actual fu-?” Tony started to ask, finally looking from whatever it was he was looking at to squint at the two of them, eyes falling on the large green wings dangling loosely from Steve’s fingertip-

The next thing either supersoldier knew, there was a cloud of papers that spontaneously appeared in the air, almost like in a cartoon when a character disappeared and left a puff of smoke behind. Somehow, at the same time this had happened, Tony had just...sprinted all the way across the room, over a sofa, and into a corner, pressed back against the wall, eyes wide as though he were staring face-to-face with a revived Thanos himself.

“GET IT OUT OF MY HOUSE SO HELP ME I WILL END YOU ALL,” wrenched out of him, as he practically hyperventilated where he stood.

Steve and Bucky just...stared, for a long moment, before Steve reached down to take hold of Bucky’s wrist, turning his hand over, and carefully and gently lowering the moth into it. “Uh...Tony? You uh, you doing all right over there?”

“OUT!” Tony pointed at the apparent offending creature, hand visibly shaking even from this distance. “DEAD OR OUTSIDE I DO NOT CARE WHICH, OUT, GONE, BANISHED FROM EXISTENCE!”

Steve and Bucky stared at him, then down at the moth, then at each other, and almost in unison, the two reacted, Bucky with a somewhat devilish grin, and Steve with an exasperated expression. “Bucky, no,” he scolded instantly, knowing it fell on deaf ears even as he did so.

“Oh Starrrrrrk,” Bucky sing-songed, turning with the moth in hand, taking a step towards the other man, who responded by scrabbling at the wall behind him with apparent intent to try and crawl his way up it as though he were suddenly Peter.

“I BLEW YOUR ARM OFF ONCE AND I WILL DO IT AGAIN I SWEAR TO GOD BUCKY!”

Bucky stopped his motion at that, barking out an incredulous laugh at the severity of that threat. “Holy shit, Tony. It’s just a moth, it literally doesn’t even have a mouth.”

“THAT THING IS SATAN IN A HAIRY WORM BODY GET IT OUT!”

“Okay, okay. Buck, take it back outside,” Steve said, trying to maintain an air of seriousness despite the grin still etched on his face. “It wouldn’t like living inside anyway.”

“Aww. Fiiiine.” Bucky just pouted slightly, but turned to head out through a door away from where Tony was still practically trying to meld himself into the wallpaper. "Come on, Booger, let's go see if Sam is any more appreciative of your obvious importance to this team."

"Don't put it down the back of his shirt!" Steve called after him, ignoring the dismissive grunt from down the hall, before looking back at the man still in the room with him, and still huddled in the corner. “Tony, are you okay?” Steve asked, trying not to sound as amused as he did as he stepped over the papers now scattered across the floor.

“No, never, never again, don’t even touch me with your horrible moth hands, you aren’t coming near me until you’ve washed every quark of moth substance off.” Tony pointed at him warningly, shaking his head.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting just slightly, Tony?” Steve said, trying his very hardest not to laugh, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“I will fight you in hell on a mound of bones, Rogers. That’s the domain of those god-forsaken monsters anyway.”

Steve finally couldn’t hold it back anymore, and a snorting giggle snuck out of him, reaching up to cover his face with one hand. “Sorry...”

“It’s not funny, Steve! I hate those things!”

“I know, I know, no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh at it, it’s just...” He snorted again, peeking between his fingers. “You’ve carried an actual nuclear bomb into outer space, you’ve fought alien armies and robot armies, you got into an actual full-on fistfight with Thanos himself without any backup, and I never saw you bat an eye, but a moth sends you screeching into the corner like a startled little girl?”

“Phobias are a very serious psychological phenomenon and very very traumatic for sufferers!” Tony crossed his arms, apparently doing his very best to actually look angry and instead landing somewhere around sulky.

Steve just nodded, even as he tried to quell his giggles. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I will be sure to make Bucky understand not to bring any more moths into the compound.” Steve looked around a little conspiratorially, before leaning in and stage-whispering for all he was worth. “If you ever need to get back at him, though, there’s these things called camel crickets...found ‘em in his bookbag once when we were kids. Never was right again after that.”

“Implication that Bucky was ever right to begin with,” Tony muttered, rubbing at his face, then giving Steve an appraising expression. “Still. You’ve earned your forgiveness for allowing that demon monster to touch you. ...but go wash your hands anyway. Now. With the hot water. Wipe everything down you touched before. All of it. Shoo.”

Steve just rolled his eyes again, but grinned a bit, turning and all but marching off to do as told.


End file.
